Today at Holy Mass St Matthew in the gospel lays out two simple rules…The only two things we need to pay attention too…Is this too much to ask?…..“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself”…....So simple…..But is it?…..Without grace…Without daily prayer…Without fasting…Without the Sacraments……These simple “asks” get distorted…Why?…Because we are all flawed by nature….Jesus knew this and that is why he made himself poor and walked the earth…He gave us the “medicine” to cure the ills of the world….That “medicine” is himself…In the Blessed Sacrament
“The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments”
If we can see Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, which is nothing more than simple bread consecrated by and through the hands of a Catholic Priest, we will be able to “see” God in others and because we “see” God in others, we will treat our neighbor as we would want to be treated….This is the “trick”….The human mind, no matter how intelligent has a way of rationalizing away our highest held ideals…This is why we must rely on God…..Everything depends upon grace…EVERYTHING….Jesus tells us this very clearly
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing”
A priest told me a story once about how this Irish woman would come begging at the door of the Church in the Bronx. The woman lived on the street and was a drug addict. The priest was always kind to her and gave her food. Because she was Irish and she knew enough to come to the Church, the priest assumed she was Catholic. The priest said that many people told him to stop helping this woman, that she was no good. But the priest continued to give her food and always spoke to her with respect and kindness. Someone asked him…Why?…The priest responded…”When this woman comes to my door, I see her as she was when she was a girl on the day she received her first communion…..Somehow something happened between then and now…That is why she is on the street…..But when she comes to my door…I still “see” that young innocent girl”……This is how God sees us….As his child…This type of “vision” can only come through prayer and the Sacraments…..This is the only way!
“If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen”
The time we spend sitting before the Blessed Sacrament gives us “vision”, most specifically, it gives us “vision” into our own heart…..We are mystery to our very self….Only God can unlock this mystery…And give us “eyes to see and hears to hear”…..Getting back to that story of the priest from the Bronx…Everyone else who saw that woman only saw her as a person living on the street as a drug addict…The priest however “saw” something else…And because of that…The priest treated her differently…..The difference between the priest and everyone else here in this story is…The priest “saw” Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament…And everyone else just saw mere bread…..This is a mystery but what is not a mystery are the actions of the priest because of what he “saw” in the Blessed Sacrament…Because of what he “saw”, he responded and put his faith into action and helped that poor woman at his door…The people who were “blinded” did not help her....Its the actions that count!...And the actions were a result of what was "seen"
Jesus in the gospel today boils down everything in the law into two simple tasks…..Love God first and love your neighbor as yourself…So simple….....But is it?….How can a “blind man” see his neighbor never mind love him?…..Only God can give the blind “sight”……And this type of “vision” can only come through prayer and the Sacraments……..You tell me you see one thing…I assure you…..I see something else…And that makes all the difference
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